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Despite several decades of feminist activism and scholarship, women's bodies continue to be sites of control and contention both materially and symbolically. Issues such as reproductive technologies, sexual violence, objectification, motherhood, and sex trafficking, among others, constitute ongoing, pressing concerns for women's bodies in our contemporary milieu, arguably exacerbated in a neoliberal world where bodies are instrumentalized as sites of human capital. This book engages with these themes by building on the strong tradition of feminist thought focused on women's bodies, and by making novel contributions that reflect feminists' concerns-both theoretically and empirically-about gender and embodiment in the present context and beyond. The collection brings together essays from a variety of feminist scholars who deploy diverse theoretical approaches, including phenomenology, pragmatism, and new materialisms, in order to examine philosophically the question of the current status of gendered bodies through cutting-edge feminist theory.
List of contents
1. Contested Terrains: New Feminist Perspectives on Embodiment - Clara Fischer and Luna Dolezal.- 2. A Genealogy of Women's (Un)Ethical Bodies - Gail Weiss.- 3. The Normal Body: Female Bodies in Changing Contexts of Normalization and Optimization - Julia Jensen and Maren Wehrle.- 4. How Do We Respond? Embodied Vulnerability and Forms of Responsiveness - Danielle Petherbridge.- 5. Revisiting Feminist Matters in the Post-Linguistic Turn: John Dewey, New Materialisms, and Contemporary Feminist Thought - Clara Fischer.- 6. Feminist and Transgender Tensions: An Inquiry into History, Methodological Paradigms and Embodiment - Lanei M. Rodemeyer.- 7. Expressing the World: Merleau-Ponty and Feminist Debates on Nature/Culture - Kathleen Lennon.- 8. Are Women's Lives (Fully) Grievable? Gendered Framing and Sexual Violence - Dianna Taylor.-9. Sex Trafficking, Reproductive Rights, and Sovereign Borders: A Transnational Struggle Over Women's Bodies - Diana Tietjens Meyers.- 10. Routine Unrecognized Sexual Violence in India - Namrata Mitra.-11. Performing Pregnant: An Aesthetic Investigation of Pregnancy - EL Putnam.- 12. The Metaphors of Commercial Surrogacy: Rethinking the Materiality of Hospitality Through Pregnant Embodiment - Luna Dolezal.
About the author
Clara Fischer is an EU Marie Sk¿odowska-Curie Fellow at the Centre for Gender, Feminisms, and Sexualities, and Co-director of the John Dewey Research Project at University College Dublin, Ireland.
Luna Dolezalis a Lecturer in Medical Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Exeter, UK.
Summary
Despite several decades of feminist activism and scholarship, women’s bodies continue to be sites of control and contention both materially and symbolically. Issues such as reproductive technologies, sexual violence, objectification, motherhood, and sex trafficking, among others, constitute ongoing, pressing concerns for women’s bodies in our contemporary milieu, arguably exacerbated in a neoliberal world where bodies are instrumentalized as sites of human capital. This bookengages with these themes by building on the strong tradition of feminist thought focused on women’s bodies, and by making novel contributions that reflect feminists’ concerns—both theoretically and empirically—about gender and embodiment in the present context and beyond. The collection brings together essays from a variety of feminist scholars who deploy diverse theoretical approaches, including phenomenology, pragmatism, and new materialisms, in order to examine philosophically the question of the current status of gendered bodies through cutting-edge feminist theory.
Additional text
“This collection contains a number of insightful essays, some of which are suitable for inclusion in undergraduate feminist philosophy courses and may be of interest to scholars researching related topics. Each essay reveals different ways that ‘women's embodiment still constitutes contested terrain.’” (Erinn Gilson, Hypatia Reviews Online, hypatiareviews.org, April, 2020)
“Reading this collection of chapters is a rewarding and moving experience; the latter a signal that what is being addressed here is about relationship and shared (and differing) humanity and suffering. … what we are dealing with here is a critical and sincere discussion (not the pursuit of mastery); a collective pursuit of both making visible and making a difference, pushing against the tide of crass right-wing and neoliberal ‘rationality’ and rabid patriarchy that so taints our current world.” (Clifford van Ommen, Feminism & Psychology, January 23, 2020)
Report
"This collection contains a number of insightful essays, some of which are suitable for inclusion in undergraduate feminist philosophy courses and may be of interest to scholars researching related topics. Each essay reveals different ways that 'women's embodiment still constitutes contested terrain.'" (Erinn Gilson, Hypatia Reviews Online, hypatiareviews.org, April, 2020)
"Reading this collection of chapters is a rewarding and moving experience; the latter a signal that what is being addressed here is about relationship and shared (and differing) humanity and suffering. ... what we are dealing with here is a critical and sincere discussion (not the pursuit of mastery); a collective pursuit of both making visible and making a difference, pushing against the tide of crass right-wing and neoliberal 'rationality' and rabid patriarchy that so taints our current world." (Clifford van Ommen, Feminism & Psychology, January 23, 2020)
